Red Hood (and the) Outlaw(s) #31 Vol. 2

Solitary and Red Hood have finally met face to faces.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I think we can all agree that Solitary doesn't know who he is for sure. The other minds that were experimented on might have confused him too much. We know that one way or another the encounter with Artemis and the prisoner did happen because she remembered it. But if the man she had mercy for wasn't Willis does that mean she DID kill Willis? Artemis seems to think she messed up Jason's life so maybe she believes she did. I could see the body belonging to someone else but Jason doesn't seem to give much consideration to the fact the man knows he's Jason or that he admitted to having absorbed two other minds. One of them could be Willis or maybe he just picked up Willis' thoughts about wanting to be there for his son. I don't believe that Solitary is dead after building up his story for so long. And Ma Gunn believes Solitary is her son Willis so it feels like he's in there somewhere. 

I can become fascinated by the smallest detail in stories and Lobdell has left a lot of thought provoking bits throughout his Red Hood runs. One of them was Jason's fear of Superman which is expanded upon here with Jason saying metas made him uneasy before he started hanging out with them on his team. Which makes sense as he was pretty isolated as Robin and usually hung around Batman. Bruce has also expressed distrust of metas in the past despite his friendships with other heroes. Although I kind of hope this means Jason didn't feel uneasy around Wonder Woman because of her powers.

The explanation of the Solitary backstory felt like it was squeezed and rushed into this issue. That's usually a sign of editorial pushing stories along. I don't want to see Solitary go the way of Underbelly and any other potential enemy Jason has. There is an odd sense of hope in the form of what happened with Miguel, though it doesn't sound too good for Miguel himself. Now if memory serves me right Bunker says he has no idea what's going on once he's free. He also realizes Solitary messed with his head, right? Well wasn't Bunker the one helping Jason last issue? His powers freed Jason and knocked out Wingman before literally pointing Jason in the direction to go. The dog then led Jason to Bunker. That seems weird, right?

It takes him a moment to figure out he's talking to Red Hood. So how could he have helped Jason then led him into a direction if he had no idea what was going on or who he was dealing with? What about Solitary claiming he brought the Outlaws together? I also seem to recall the flashback of Roy suggesting he/they might have been led right to the evidence. What about Solitary reacting to Jason's claim that he's been on the trail for weeks? Artemis believing she ruined Jason's life? There are a lot of dangling threads, too many for this "ending" to be satisfactory if the bad guy is dead.

The partnership with Wingman feels pretty rushed too. Jason doesn't seem to know his name or why he personally is so invested in Jason returning to Gotham. At least with Miguel I can buy that he'll hang around Jason since he trusts him because of Tim. There is likely a lot of things I missed in this issue and it left me a little confused on the direction. There's been discussions of Bendis making Jason a villain and I didn't expect him to just make a new team. I'm not even sure where he'll go before Gotham. I'm kept guessing which isn't a bad thing in itself. I don't know how to feel about this one quite yet...disappointed if it really is the end of this story but I don't know if it is.

Questions Asked: Bunker is 19? I don't remember Miguel ever saying his age previously but is this supposed to be Tims' age? Last I heard Tim was still 16 and in Young Justice he looks even younger.

This may sound weird but since anything can happen in comics I'll ask: is Wingman from the future or something? His insistence that Jason is needed now seems like he has information Jason doesn't.



Say What?: "Cold spit"? Is this like his odd G rated comments to Roy? Is he censoring himself? Why? Out of habit for Bizarro? He hasn't really cursed all that much before.

Didn't Solitary claim he was one guy?

Lobdell knows some fans hate the baseball cap Roy wore as he has Jason say he hated it. I personally don't get why it's such a big deal.



Did you notice?: In a Green Arrow Roy wasn't buried in a grave yard. When Ollie commented on the random spot a friend of Roy's said it was where he decided to get clean which was why it was chosen.